Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are an allotrope of carbon, having cylindrical structure and diameters, which range from less than about 1 nm to about 100 nm in diameter. CNTs have many potentially applications in a wide variety of industries due to many extraordinary properties coupled with nanometer-scale size. For example, properties such as high thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, mechanical strength and flexibility, coupled with high-aspect-ratio are responsible for the increasing number of CNT applications.
Current CNT manufacturing methods typically produce CNTs with significant impurities such as, for example, metal catalysts and amorphous carbon. Purification steps are typically required after synthesis of CNTs via conventional manufacturing methods, to provide relatively pure carbon nanotubes. CNT purification steps require large and expensive chemical plants which makes producing large quantities of CNTs of greater than 90% purity extremely costly. Furthermore, present CNT manufacturing methods produce CNTs with low structural uniformity (i.e., CNTs of variable lengths).
Accordingly, what is needed are new methods and devices for providing high quality and inexpensive CNTs with high structural uniformity and low levels of impurities.